"I remember the first time the doodlebugs came down. I can remember being down my next-door neighbours' shelter. "We had our own shelter but for company we would go to theirs or they would come to ours.

"There was a raid on and I was down the shelter. I think it was the first time the doodlebugs came over.

"My father and Mr Gear, the man next door, were outside with their tin hats on watching the war going on and I remember my father saying 'look the bug has got its arse alight'.

"They thought it was an aeroplane that had been hit, but it was doodlebug, which usually expelled flames from its engine."

Soon after, Mr Crowhurst was evacuated to Axminster in Devon, but hated it so much his father brought him home, and he went to stay with his grandmother in Dartford.

It was there he witnessed another doodlebug raid - but one with an unusual conclusion.

"We went down the shelter. The engine cut out and we knew it was going to come pretty close because of the noise it made.

"We were waiting for the explosion but it never came.

"I think it came down in the Thames or the marshes and never went off.